Modern data centers and IT infrastructures undergo frequent changes due to routine maintenance, upgrades and the like. In some cases existing equipment is removed for repair or replacement. In other cases existing equipment is relocated to a new position within an equipment rack or can be relocated to a different equipment rack. In other cases, new equipment may be added to one or more equipment racks. Most data centers maintain at least some form of map as to the physical location of each piece of equipment (e.g., servers, network hardware, routers, switches, gateways and the like). Such maps are typically updated manually by data center personnel. The manual nature of traditional data center configuration monitoring makes real time visualization and monitoring of the date center extremely difficult. It would be desirable to provide systems and methods for automatic discovery of the physical location of data center equipment such that manual configuration monitoring is not required.
By automating manual data center configuration monitoring, organizations benefit from real time visibility into the operation of data center equipment. This can simplify the maintenance and upgrade process and can also be beneficial when combined with Intelligent power distribution systems, devices and methods.